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Join NACDL
When new criminal-defense lawyers ask me about joining criminal-defense lawyers' associations, I advise them to join their local criminal-defense lawyers' associations (unless "local" means Austin, Texas) first, and then the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In Texas, at least, the state organization is a distant third.
The national association, NACDL, has a new president: Arkansas criminal-defense lawyer and blawger John Wesley Hall (Law of Criminal Defense). John's From the President column (PDF) in this month's Champion (the organization's magazine, one of the great benefits of NACDL membership) should be required reading. A snippet:
The government seeks to take our clients' liberty, to house them in a cage or a concrete box, and sometimes even take their lives. It is more convenient for government to dispense with some procedural niceties, as it is wont to do, but a trial and cirminal justice were never meant to be convenient.The criminal courts are where the Constitution is tested and protected by people like us - every day, in every case. That is why I became a criminal-defense lawyer.
Genuine John McCain POW Bracelet
On ebay: a wonderful gift for a McCain supporter. Bidding starts at $100.
One small catch, though. Proceeds from the auction benefit the Trial Lawyers College, an institution that trains lawyers for people - plaintiffs' personal injury lawyers, criminal-defense lawyers, and other characters scary to the major corporations and frightened white people that form the Republican party's base.
Yeah, Um, I Think We'll Pass on This One.
Dear Mark,To introduce me, I am Advoate Goutam Prasad and writting you on behalf of G. P. Law Solutions.Actually, we are New Delhi based Law Firm, which provides Legal Process Outsourcing Services too.As you know now Legal Process Outsourcing is recognised by ABA too and its a great idea to reduce cost and increase profits without compromise to quality. If you go my personal experience, I am sure specially in case of Deposition Summaries, there is no risk of any quality issue.The idea behind writing you to request for looking any possibilty of outsourcing association.For your reference, I have attached our firm profile here.Thanks.Goutam PrasadChief AttorneyG. P. Law Solutions.
Dear Mr. Prasad,
If I were in some area of the law in which the outcome didn't matter, I might let you summarize a deposition just for grins. As it is, though, I would not allow you to touch one of my clients' cases if you were the last "advoate" on Earth.
It's not simply your cavalier attitude toward indefinite articles, nor your charming omission of verbs connecting subjects and objects, nor your Generation-Y approach to spelling and grammar generally. It is, rather, that your tolerance for "quality issues" is clearly much higher than my clients (whose futures are on the line) would consent to have applied to their cases.
Politics
It's that time again, when voters in about 20 states get to choose a president for the rest of us. Being in Texas, where I get only a symbolic vote in the presidential election, I am at some leisure to observe the mechanics of the election and consider how they might relate to the art & science etc.
There's not a whole lot of difference between the two major parties. That's what comes from having a two-party system: the parties cluster close together in the middle of the political spectrum because if one moves closer to its own pole (socialism on the left or fascism on the right), increasing its distance from the other party, it will lose some of the voters between the two.
I don't like being lied to. A politician who lies to get a vote doesn't deserve it. I also don't like politicians trying to scare me. I have a pretty good idea of how dangerous the world is, so I recognize political scare tactics as untruths, if not lies. I believe that government should be a little smaller than possible.
Downtown Debeautification Project
[Edit: I guess it's hard to see, but they're carting off the remains of the oak trees that decorated this block of Congress Avenue between 2001 and 4:30 a.m. last Saturday.]
The Game is Afoot
Per the Chronicle's Tropical Weather blog (a good source of information about Hurricane closings and openings, though I wish they would list ZIP codes when they publish a list of businesses that are open - since ZIP codes are generally geographically near their numerical neighbors, sorting by ZIP is a good way to provide such information in a way that our brains can easily use), the Harris County Criminal District (felony) courts will be open tomorrow, Wednesday, September 17, 2008, after a brief hiatus.
This agrees with the announcement on the Harris County District Courts' webpage, but contrary to the announcement on the Harris County District Clerk's web page that "The Criminal Justice Center at 1201 Franklin is closed until further notice."
A Few More Post-Ike Photos
One of many fallen once-majestic trees:
Snapped, not uprooted:
The tree fell in their child's room. Fortunately, they had left before the storm:
This garage is going to need a little more work:
The guy in the maroon shirt with the chainsaw lost the front half of his house to a falling tree - he and his 7-month pregnant wife were on the front porch when the tree started coming down; they heard it crack, and he dragged her back through the house, with the roof collapsing behind them; here he and the neighbors are clearing the street:
Gate blown off its hinges:
Another uprooted tree. It pains me to see these hundred-year-old trees destroyed, but at least nobody was (as far as I know) hurt.
Hurricane Update 0840
The wind and water are still blowing, but the worst appears to be past. The neighborhood is a mess. Trees are shattered or downed. The only areas in Houston with power are downtown and the medical center (per USA Today). Lower-lying areas might still see flooding from the rains.
We're extraordinarily lucky.
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